Ship s windlass



- UNITED srATEs ALBERT RUSSELL AND ELEAZER R. WALKER, OF NEWBURYPORT,MASSACHUSETTS.

SHIPS wINDLAss.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 5,115,- dated May 15, 1847.,

To all whom t may concern.'

Be it known that we, ALBERT RUSSELL and ELEAZER R. WALKER, ofNewburyport, in t-he county of Essex and State of Massachusetts, haveinvented a newand useful Improvement in Windlasses for Vessels; and wedo hereby declare that the same is fully described and represented inthe following speciication and accompanying drawings, letters, figures,and references thereof.

Of said drawings, Figure l represents a top view of our improvedwindlass divested of its brakes, they being applied to it in the samemanner, in which they are usually applied to other windlasses. Fig. 2represents a horizontal section of it. Fig. 3 a vertical and centralsection, and Fig. 4c a vertical section of the nipper purchase, andpawl, to be hereinafter described.

In said drawings A denotes the barrel of the windlass, and B, B, thecheeks or supports, in which it revolves, and by which it is sustainedin position. C is a wheel or pulley, fitted upon the windlass, in itscentral part, or in any other proper part of it. The said wheel has aseries of teeth at, a, &c.

' made upon and entirely around its periphery as seen in t-he drawings.It has also two ianches I) and c, cast or otherwise made to project fromit laterally in opposite directions. These flanches constitute part o-fwhat is termed the nipper purchase.

D is the nipper purchase lever, which is made in two parts or halves e,f, confined together by screws and nuts, or other proper contrivances.The said nipper lever is applied to the wheel as seen in Fig. 2 and insuch manner, that each half of it operates on one of the'flanches 50.The part of each half of said nipper lever which receives the flanchoperatedby it-is shaped as seen at g, h, z', la, o, n, m, l, in Fig.Ll-the same being a depression in the portion or half of the lever,having a uniform depth, equal to that of the flanch. In Fig. 4 a portionof the flanch of the wheel and some of the teeth thereof-are denoted bydotted lines, the lever D being represented in the position it assumeson the flanch in the act of nipping it. The port-ions L, z', m, a, ofthe depression in which the flanch is inserted, may be termed the jawsof the nipper lever. They are made nearly -if not quite straight linesor planes, and are very short both above and below the center line ofthe lever D, as seen in Fig. 4:. They are placed at a distance apart, alitt-le greater than the width of the fianch, but are not intended to beparallel to each other. From these the space which receives the flanchis flared o' or made to increase in width as seen at g, h, 731 Z, 7c,c', n, o. Now whenthe lever D is lifted up by power applied to its outerend 79, the two diagonal corners or angular parts it, a, bear againstthe outer and inner edges respectively of the fianch,

and by so doing nip or grip the flanch, in

OFFICE.;

such manner as to rotate the wheel and windlass. As soon as the force bywhich the lever D is lifted ceases to act, the lever drops and slidesdown on the flanches. In connection with the aforesaid nip er purchase,we use a pawl g-which we X in the lever D, and so as to act in contactwith the teeth of the wheel as seen .in the drawings'. We do not use oremploy the pawl and teeth for the purpose in which they are generallyused in windlasses, but we use them in combination with the nipperpurchase, so as to work the windlass without the usual back lash and incase the nipper purchase should not be suflicient to overcome the strainon the windlass. the pawl andv teeth will prevent the lever D fromslipping on the flanches, further than for the pawl to abut against thetooth immediately above it.

The nipper purchase and pawl and teeth,

will thus act in conjunction, in turning the windlass-the strain beingthrown partly on each. V y

There are many advantages in the employment of the aforesaidcombination, over the usual Vexpensive windlass operated by the pawlsand toothed wheels only-or without the nipper purchase. There is notthat liability to break the cogs of the wheel that exists, where theyand pawls alone are depended upon to work the windlass. The breaking oftheV teeth is often fatal to the yessel, as well as destruction to thewindass.

The division of the power between the nipper and pawl purchaseswrendersus able i to operate the windlass-most of the time by the nipperpurchase' alone, and when any unusual strain takes place a part of it,or f all that portion of it,beyond what can be overcome by the nip erpurchase, will be borne by the pawl'an fteeth. n

We are well aware,that a nipper purchase, and a pawl purchase, have beenused separately Y on Windlass'Wes, therefore' We make no claim tothenolvwheny used separately, but that which We claim as our invention sThe combination of the nipper and paWl purchases, in the mannersubstantially as specified.

In testimony whereof We have hereto set our signatures this fifth day ofFebruary A. D. 1847.

ALBERT RUSSELL. ELEAZER R. WALKER.

Witnesses:

WILLIAM MoULToN, JOHN CooK.

